it could become a raging torrent of water, but the railroad built through the canyon anyway. Despite the warnings, track work through the canyon proceeded at a quick pace. They completed the line to Fallbrook on January 2, 1882, then to Temecula on March 27, 1882. Many parts of the canyon had suffered storms. In February 1884, a storm hit. The train was delayed and the canyon walls brought boulders crashing down on the rails. On February 3, the train was unable to get through. A few days later, the wires were down. The train from Colton to San Diego could not get through. Disaster was averted because a local resident, Charlie Howell, hurried up the tracks from his family homestead near Willow Glen and managed to stop the train. A series of devastating washouts on the section through Temecula Canyon occurred amid heavy rain storms that flooded the area starting on February 16, 1884, just six months after the first trains operated the entire route between San Diego and San Bernardino. The storms brought more than of rain in a four-week period. Two thirds of the mainline through the canyon were washed out with ties seen floating as far as away in the ocean. Temporary track repairs were made after the first storms, but later in the month, additional rains and flooding washed out the entire route through the canyon. Repairs were estimated at nearly $320,000, a figure that could not be recouped effectively. The canyon was finally bypassed completely with the completion of the Surf Line on August 12, 1888, and the line through the canyon was relegated to branch line status. By 1900 it had been abandoned by AT&SF. Finally, the 1928 construction of Railroad Canyon Dam submerged the section of track between Elsinore and Perris beneath Railroad Canyon Lake (now known as Canyon Lake). The crossing at Colton Construction of the California Southern was repeatedly interrupted by Santa Fe's rival, Southern Pacific Railroad (SP). In one instance, the California Southern was set to build a level junction across the SP tracks in Colton, a move that would end Southern Pacific's monopoly in Southern California. The Colton Crossing was the site of one of the more notable frog wars in American railroad history. In the summer of 1882, tensions reached their boiling point when construction of tracks for the California Southern reached Colton, California. In an attempt